'But my work in Stone Quarter, Holy One?'
'Is no longer your concern. There are two cohorts marching down from High Haldia to take over administrative duties here once the army marches on Nessumara. You will report directly to the main command as my personal adjutant, with your rank raised to that of captain. I'll call on you and your company as I have need of them.'
'You honor me, Holy One. Shall we cleanse the ostiary, Holy One?'
'No. The gods will dispose of an honest ostiary as they see fit. Come. My errand is urgent. The gods-touched are our enemies. All must be brought before me.'
The soldiers shrank back as she skirted the bodies of the fallen to reach a gate that led into the alley separating this compound from an adjoining emporium. She opened the gate and walked through.
The new captain paused under the lintel, a malicious smile slashing his face as he contemplated his enhanced authority. 'Dump that one in Scavengers' Alley like the rubbish he is. Then we'll see how the gods choose to dispose of an honest ostiary.'
The blow took Nekkar from behind. A second smashed into his shoulders as laughter hammered in his ears. Distantly, a man sobbed. He toppled dazedly to the dirt, wondering why there was a salty taste in his mouth. What had Vassa cooked tonight for supper?
With the third blow came oblivion.
How to describe what you grew up never having words for? Nallo had been born and raised in the rugged Soha Hills, where a person might stand on a ridge path and survey higher slopes where rock broke the surface of the soil like old bones, and deeper gullies where streams ran white. But to fly! To hang in the harness below an eagle, as the land unrolled beneath you like so many bolts of multicolored cloth!
That was something.
She had never seen a river so wide that a shout might not carry across it. To the north, forest tangled the earth. To the south, on the far side of the river, neat rectangles marked densely packed fields, and every village boasted a flagpole and one or two small temples, each one easily identifiable from the air. There lay a quartered square, a temple built for Kotaru the Thunderer, the god she had served for one year as an apprentice. Here rose the three-tiered gates holy to Ilu the Herald. Roofs thatched with fanned leaves from the thatch-oil tree covered altars raised to Taru the Witherer, their bright green color withering as the rains faded. She spotted a walled garden sacred to Ushara the Merciless One, a few people loitering in the forecourt, too tiny to distinguish male from female; in the Devourer's garden, such distinctions did not matter as long as you brought clean desire to the act of worship.
She glanced toward her companion reeves. Kesta led while Pil flew the west flank. Ahead lay the ocean, a seething expanse of water that fell into the sky far to the east.
Tumna chirped, jerking Nallo's attention to a discoloration lying athwart land and ocean dead ahead. It was hard to fathom until the eyes began to identify the multitudinous strands of water plaiting the land and the rank upon rank of wood and stone buildings rising on islands within the delta as though they were a crop of stone being raised out of the earth. Was that Nessumara, the jewel of the sea, the city of bridges, the largest city in the Hundred?
I'm just a hill girl born to goat herders! I'll never get used to this!
Following Kesta's eagle, Arkest, Tumna dropped toward one island among many within the branching arms of the great river. Nallo laughed with the blend of fear and thrill she'd not yet gotten used to. The wind rumbled in her ears. The city flew up to meet her, and Tumna banked to overfly the largest parade ground, where Kesta and Arkest were just setting down. Nallo counted four parade grounds, separated by a maze of walls and lofts, as Tumna veered toward an empty one. Jessed eagles concealed in lofts called out in challenge, but Tumna ignored them. Extending her wings to their greatest extent, she raised her talons to make a perfect landing on a massive wooden log set horizontal to the ground.
'Whoop!' Nallo shouted. Tumna chuffed, shaking herself as Nallo unhooked from the harness and dropped to the ground. Two fawkners jogged out from the lofts.
'Heya! I'm Nallo, out of Clan Hall. Greetings of the day.'
'Yeh, yeh, you're new, aren't you? Your eagle did all the work, that's for sure. What's your eagle's name? Anything we should know?'
The brusque voice brought her up short. 'She's called Tumna, and' — she paused to get their attention — 'she ripped off the head of her last reeve.'
'Deserved, no doubt,' said the stouter one, who did all the talking. The wiry one nodded with a sneering grin.
They were experienced fawkners and she a novice reeve, not even yet able to steer her eagle properly. Sparring with them was not a battle she could win. 'We're here to pick up rice and nai for the siege.'
'So we heard. You can't possibly ferry enough sacks of rice and nai by eagle flight to feed Toskala.'
'We're not feeding Toskala, only the defenders up on Law Rock.'
'Why stay in Clan Hall at all? Why not evacuate? Copper Hall could use reinforcements at our main hall on the Haya shore. And Horn Hall is abandoned.'
'We can't abandon Law Rock and Justice Square to those who mean to overthrow the law.'
The fawkner shook her head. 'Maybe not. But we're overrun with refugees from Istria and Haldia. We're starting to see hungry and sick refugees out of Toskala, and for sure there are more to come, eh? Our reeves are buried under fights and altercations all along the roads, even with the militia out patrolling.'
The wiry fellow spoke up for the first time. 'Seems selfish of you Clan Hall reeves not to disperse to reinforce the other halls. Work together. Be of some use.'
'We're not giving up Law Rock,' snapped Nallo. 'Now, can you show me where we're to pick up the grain? I hope the merchants of Nessumara are more polite than you.'
'Whoof! Don't cross this one, eh, Arvd?' said the woman before she hawked and spat on the dirt. Hostility was easy to see in the creases of her mouth. 'You've got that gods-rotted old Silver to bargain with. He'll suck you dry.' As one, they took a step back as Sweet pulled up neat as you please to land on the other side of the parade ground. 'The hells! We heard rumor an outlander had jessed, but we didn't believe it. Is he human?'
'As human as I am,' Nallo retorted. 'Although I wonder about you two, not even giving a proper greeting and then speaking ill of some old man I've never even met.'
'Whew! My ears are burning!' They sauntered away to get a look at Pil.
She turned back to Tumna, awkward with the hand signals. 'Remain' was easy enough, a sweep and clutch sketched in the air. Then she ran after the fawkners. 'Heya! Where am I supposed to go?'
Copper Hall's island was larger than Argent Hall. To make it all more confusing, this parade ground was rimmed on all sides by buildings, lofts, barracks, storehouses, even a smithy roiling with smoke and noisy with beaten strokes, wang wang wangl Her head hurt already, and in addition to the iron sting wafting from the smithy, there crept into her nostrils a slimy fragrance that dwelt in the air the same way a winter byre full of goats has a smell as much texture as scent.
'To the docks,' they shouted back before they approached Pil. He had climbed up the ladder to the fawkner's board just below the perch to examine Sweet's wings. Sweet was a good-tempered bird, less territorial than most not so much because she was friendlier but because she seemed bored of going to the trouble of posturing over each least perch. Nallo suspected that
things wouldn't go so smoothly if you really crossed the old bird.
Pil satisfied himself on the matter of the wing feathers — how he fussed over that eagle! — and descended the ladder. His exchange with the fawkners was briefer than hers had been; then he jogged to meet her, gesturing toward a gap between the smithy and a warehouse.